music

12 February 2005

In honor of a far-flung Contrarian in town for the weekend, we whipped up a Tuscan feast last night, culled in its entirety from Paula Wolfert's brilliant Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. Compliment of the Night award went to the guest of honor, for his proclamation that "If you can get this here, no need to go to Tuscany."

Appetizers: Fresh grilled semolina triangles for two dips: a dandelion herb jam and evoo-simmered melted leeks. The herb jam is a staple here at CQ HQ. Steam an assortment of bitter greens and herbs - dandelion with cilantro, celery leaves and parsley - with a few skinned garlic cloves at the basket's bottom. Saute til dry with sweet smoked paprika, ground cumin, a pinch of cayenne, a rough chop of black olives and the smashed steamed garlic. Keeps for a week - mix with S&P and lemon to serve. The leeks we hadn't made before but all were quite happy with the result. The bread could have been neither simpler nor tastier: fresh vermont butter and semolina pasta flour kneaded a while. The grilling however did improve the thinner we pounded the rounds.

Poor Man's Bread, Kale and Black Pepper Soup. Madam Wolfert says this recipe comes from Siena and in the book it looks quite simple. Would have been a cinch too, but of course we decided to make it yet much slower by doing a broth instead of using water. Roasted aromatics and root vegetables enrich broths with a smokiness to which we've grown quite partial; they also helped compensate for the pancetta we couldn't use in this dish once we discovered that one attendee didn't eat pork, poor fellow. We've also taken to cribbing an idea or two from Daniel Boulud's Cafe Cookbook: his veg stock calls for equal parts whole white peppercorns, whole coriander seeds and whole juniper berries. We used Swiss Chard instead of Kale, alluding to rather than embracing the rampant phenomena of ingredient fetishism: at 28 cents more the bushel, who's to complain? Melt some onion and garlic, saute the chard a few minutes; add the broth, bring to boil then simmer a while. To assemble: place grilled bread at the bottom of the bowl, ladel hot soup over and top with grated cheese. We let the Parmigiano melt a spell before serving, and must say that the soup looked fantastic. Wolfert shares a very interesting trick in this recipe: add a Parmigiano-Regg rind to the soup while it's cooking; remove and rinse when done and save to reuse!

Pork Shoulder Coddled in Olive Oil with Tuscan Beans and Arugula. This dish hails from Arezzo, where people have at times been so poor as to have to kill piggies for lack of pig food. A recipe akin to Sicily's olive-oil poached tuna, we've long wanted to give this a go and last night proved just the occasion. Now of course, first our minds raced to Berkshire Kurubota pork shoulder, so over to Lobels we ventured. $28 a pound sure seemed steep for shoulder, but it wouldn't break us, and anyway one of the land's fiercest eminence gris was expected at the table. However, apparently Lobel's online and the shop itself share only the most tenuous of associations. Lobel's does not for instance keep shoulder in stock and will only order a one for you if you take the whole thing - which they said would weigh in at 8 pounds! As an alternative, the kindly butchers suggested that they could carve up some Kurubota loin. 'Really, loin? But we want shoulder.' 'It'll work just as well,' they promised. 'Um, ok. What will it run us?" $78. $78? We smiled, thanked them and hightailed it down to Faicco's on Bleeker where the exact size shoulder cut we wanted, 2.5 lbs, came in at $11, ka-ching.

Which is where the fun started. It's always charming when recipes say things that sound short and sweet in a single phrase - and that phrase then ends up costing a couple hours labor. Such was the case with Wolfert's direction #1: "Trim away all the fat, sinew and membrane from the pork. Cut the meat into 2-inch chunks." Seriously, two hours. However at that point, Thursday night, we were still earnestly enthsiastic about the Slow aspect of Slow Food, tra la. Set the chunks up in a fennel & thyme rub overnight and the next day, after 30 minutes lightly bubbling in 2 cups of evoo on the stovetop, you coddle the chunks in the oven at 250 for two and a half hours. That you can leave in the fridge up to five days before you serve it. Meanwhile the cannellini beans were soaking and the broth and dips done.

Which raises another aspect of this particular feast: though prepared all but entirely in one NYC studio apartment kitchen, it had to then be transported to another apartment (one with a proper dining room) to serve. So it was: with two sandwich ziplocks of cooked beans; a big ziplock with the olive oil-preserved pork; yogurt containers of leeks, dandelions and two of soup; as well as a plate of semolina rounds - we caught the bus cross town. So last night upon arrival, all that was left to do really (doesn't this sound easy!?) was slowly reheat the pork in the oil, drain that; scoop off the oil and add the reserved meat juice to the beans. Serve on a big colorful ceramic plate from Tuscany: pile high the beans, sprinkle with red wine vineager-marinated red onion, top with the meat and surround with arugula.

Cheeses for dessert.

To drink, 7 wines:

Whites: Verdejo, Chablis & Scheurebe

1. We drank a lemony but well-balanced white 2002 Basa from Rueda, Spain - just west of Ribera del Duero - as the cooking wine: wine to drink while cooking. Pinot Gris-y, cheap n' tasty.

2. 1993 Raveneau Chablis "les Clos" Gorgeous. Sea air, minerals and subtle lemons; stones as seductive as they were reserved. And yet, butter. Why is American wine never so well balanced? Though opened early on, we finished this with the cheese course a few hours later and it had only improved. A case, please.

6. 1983 Guigal Hermitage. Wonderfully developed; we guessed this was a Bordeaux.

7. 1983 Gentaz Derivieux Cote Rotie, Cote Brune. Bretty, which is to say has some stink to it: rustic, barny, just what one seeks in Cote Rotie, with the chocolate-bacon nose, body and length.

These last two, 6 & 7, both northern Rhone red and hugely enjoyable, had been decanted for a couple hours by the time we tucked in. Exxxtra funky, developed and possessed of pointedly changing noses, the both.

11 January 2005

Fat and steel, cream and acid: white Burgundy synthsizes opposites. No surprise then to find there a Temple of Janus, the god of two faces: one coming, one going, one happy, one sad. Contradiction may be at the heart why of Burgs appeal to CQ, but we also think it works as Breakfast Wine.

Following: other thoughts with which we left a recent 2001 1ere Cru tasting, where 8 participants tried 8 wines blindly, each ranked them and then took averages of rankings.

CQ's #1 - Ramonet, Chassagne Montrachet, Morgeot. Group's #3 of 8. Lush minerals and floral notes in the nose and what some called slutty or promiscuous oak on the tongue, balanced by great acids and a hugely long finish. All one could hope for in a baby white Burg. Kind of strange to be seduced by oak, but at least one's assured this is old and french rather than young and flexing. $48

CQ (closely tied for #3) #4 - Chateau de la Maltroye, Chassagne Montrachet, Dents de Chien. Group's #4. We found cappucino, cinnamon, coffee, chocolate notes in the nose - not sweet but rather soft and pretty, with an urchin-like acidic curl to it; fat and complex on the palate. Quite long too; a bitter flirtatiousness that wouldn't unhand you. $70

White Chardonnay grapes in Burgundy gain complexity and grace from growing in acidic, minerally chalks and limestone, high in calcium carbonate. California'a fat, round, buttery Chardonnays grow in less acid and more fertile soils; if good wine can be made from them it wil be through manipulating how the climate, not the soil effects grapes.

12 December 2004

WD50 just continues to improve. The wine list is looking a great deal better, with a deeper take on (CQ's preferred) old world selections and less emphasis on freaky Californian juice. (Kind of hilarious though to note that a Long Island Chardonnay - what a horrendous idea, Long Island may be great for potatoes but grapes? - cost twice that of the list's Austrian Rotgipfler.) The Asian influences here become e'er more pronounced, but in concert with less expected Mediterranean influences. Japan and Greece for instance both made an appearance in our lovely amuse: goat cheese souffle with a cucumber broth and dehydrated flakes - subtle, ineffable flavors that worked exactly as an amuse is supposed to, priming us for the delights to come, intimating the chef's style and soliciting appetite.

We shared 3 apps: the octopus, the beef tongue and the nori caramel-filled foie gras bon bon. The octopus, tender and flavorful, managed to be understated even in combination with a grapefruit smash - is that a jam? - olives, string beans and sprouts. Here again, the sprouts, citrus and presentation harked to Asia while the olives and beans evoked the Med. Yet as an ensemble the dish worked. The tongue had great flavor and texture and we fell too for its dehydrated onion dust heap, but the famed fried mayo cubes seemed a bit gimmicky. More novel than anything else - they did bring us back to life in 1989's Barcelona: late, late nights after the fourth disco, wasted and round about dawn we'd venture to the fritas depot for a paper cone filled with crispy french fries splashed in mayo. Adored the foie dish: terribly sexy when sliced and it oozes black. Quite preferred it to the brioche foie brulee at Jean Georges. It also seemed that the raw material, the foie itself was of a higher quality and better texture than that of its anchovy and chocolate foie predecessor.

We had two big plates: cod with its smokey mash potatoes, gorgeous pickled mini mushrooms and red pepper swoosh; and the lamb chops, with a laser-thin sliced leek and delicious (braised?) fingerlings. We had the appley 2002 Savarey Chablis but found it a little soft, lacking in minerals and steel. Polished it off regardless and were happy to find more verve and muscle in glasses of the 1998 Alsatian Baur Riesling. Lamb admittedly could have used a red.

As perhaps we've mentioned we think pastry chef Sam Mason is pretty much a fucking genius, so though no longer at all hungry we gave one of his desserts a spin. How to ignore black sesame ice cream? A perfect texture and remarkably hued: steel-green, battleship grey. A black sesame flag waved from atop our football scoop and on the other side of the plate, torched grapefruit slices sat on the tastiest part of this dish: an olive oil cake. Almost nothing sweet here - just gorgeous, unique, strange flavors balanced, challenging and new.

11 November 2004

Though it was a bit past noon yesterday when we wandered into Craftbar, it was in some deeper sense still early. To brace ourselves against the day we first gave the Alsatian 2002 Paul Zinck Prestige Riesling a spin. A bit flabby unfortunately with none of the requisite verve. A 2003 Anton Bauer Gruner Veltliner from Donauland also lacked the swarthy, determined gate we had in mind to carry us through lunch and the Albana/Sauvignon Blanc blend from Srabismo di Venere in Emilia-Romagna, while interesting seemed a little sloop-shouldered and vaguely sweet. Finally a well structured, flinty Bordeaux arrived with just the punch we wanted: the 2003 Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon blend from Chateau La Caussade in Sainte Croix du Mont. Craftbar had on the list for $7 a glass. Wish we knew where to find this as the bottle can’t be more than $10 in a shop. Its steely muscular profile with toast, minerals and yeast was the perfect kickstart; a couple few of these put us in in good stead for lunch. For lunch: roasted sea bass on the bone with crisped and smoky skin in a pond of pequillo peppers, tripe and roasted cippolinis for one. For the other, a braised and roasted bunny. Phenomenally good, both.

We shared a couple cheeses for dessert: the Basque Abbaye de Bellocq, which hadn’t quite enough funk on it, and a stunning Lingot (also goat) du Quercy. A glass of Henri Darnat’s 2001 Clos du Domaine Meursault Burgundy from the Cote de Beaune paired well - nothing in common with the Bordeaux of course, this was a deep, soft, elegant, complex pineapple-and-pollen whirlpool. Fortified, we poured ourselves into theater seats for a screening of Sideways – an utterly charming flick – and then walked over to the wine bar Enoteca at I Trulli.

We’d loved the 1997 Tegolaia from Travignoli once sold here, but I Trulli has since moved on to pouring the 1999. When asked how the two compared, the sommelier poured us the 1999 Brunello from Castelli Martinozzi instead. Lovely fellow by the way: tasteful, knowledgeable and not at all the pretentious sort one so often finds at wine bars. Used to be the sommelier at Babbo for three years. Well this Brunello – good god, what a supercool wine. We at CQ could consume it case upon case and well may. Here though we did stick to just the one glass, as when it was gone our new found sommelier next recommended another: the simpler if also gorgeous Aglianico del Vulture Riserva, 1998 from Tenuta del Portale. Aglianico has so much unassuming character and none-too-fruity fruit; this seems an Italian's Italian and one well paired with I Trulli's house-cured prosciutto, coppa and soppressata. It was though getting on and for a night cap after our arduous day we had the lovely if leagues softer Puglian Rupicolo di Rivera, 2002. Velvety, dark, unctuous: this is another it'd well pay to keep on hand. This week, the sommelier said, he'll have new fall flights lined up.We'll be back.

10 November 2004

Beauty, poet and sculptor Gita Ghei once noted that if ever you're having a bad day, just have breakfast and you can start over. Taking her wisdom to heart we've begun to research which wines work best with, or instead of breakfast. Yes, Rieslings may have the upper hand from the get go, and though this first installment begins to look into that possibility, we also intend to give fair shakes to Muscadet, Cortese, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillion, Chenin Blanc and Pinot Noir among others. Please remember that CQ encourages your comments and suggestions on this or any other topic. Post them by clicking on 'comment.'

One morning not long ago we dropped into the lovely new Discovery wine shop on New York City's Lower East Side where importer Domaine Select was hosting an Austrian tasting. Several winemakers were on hand to present their wares and while much more than just Rieslings and Gruner Veltliners were poured, all were white and all reasonable suitable for early morning ministrations. In the rather random order in which they were poured:

Sudoststeiermark(SE Styria) Frühwirth, Klöcher Tranminer, Hochwarth 2003. Rose petally; earthy, fuller fruits.Thermenregion, Karl Alphart, Rotgipfler 2003. Our favorite, maybe. Georgeous, explosive minerality; clear, faintly
tropical fruit invoking distilled banana mango. What glorious structure here though, like the young Brigitte Bardot. Rotgipfler
varietal only grows in this wee place, close to Vienna but sheltered from
cold NE winds by warm Hungarian winds. The grape seems not to be much exported as yesterday when we dropped in to Discoverey they sadly had none on offer.

Donauland/Wagrau, Leth, Roter Veltliner, Scheiben 2003. Oddly, Red Veltliner is both older than and not related to Gruner Veltliner. It is a late ripening grape
harvested from the beginning to late November. From fifty year old vines, this is powerful wine and exactingly
trimmed. Its nuanced spicy fragrances hinted to apricot without overbearing sugars and its big, elegant loping length had a pretty, unsticky finish.Donauland/Wagrau, Wimmer-Czerny, Taminer Trio, Mitterweg 2003. We were quite fond indeed of the hyperminerality here, which we'd imagine renders vitamins redundant. Low low acids meant this had less body than the others. The Riesling is a descendant of Traminer and this wine was a blend of 3 Traminers: Red, Yellow and Gewurtz. Notable was the delicious yeast here that the winemakers carefully cultivate on their own vineyards which certainly pays off.Kamptal, Brandl, Reisling, Heiligenstein 2003. Another top pick. Huge complexity, very light in color. Minerally pepper spice. Lovely, come to think of it, for breakfast; reason enough to get out of bed.

Another recent CQ foray into Rieslings, this time via Germany, occurred in the wake of an American contrarian's trip to the fatherland. There he'd learned to rustle up the Black Forrest delicacy, Schwabian Maultaschen, pork and leek dumplings. When correctly pronounced Maultaschen sound like Malatov, so we suggested that armed with his arcane neo-Malatov knowledge, our comrade host a bash. Not only could he showcase the dumplings, which don't sound bad as dumplings go, but clearly the babies are intended to accompany Rieslings.

With appetizers - marinated Portuguese sardines served over toasts first layered with ripe avocado and topped with scallion strips and a chive mince - we opened the 2003 von Hovel - Schartzhofberger - Kabinett: petrol and grapefruit, well balanced and bright. Pretty and playful if remarkably low in alcohol. In fact all the evening's wines were nearly alcohol-free, which had the odd effect of rendering the CQ directorate quite able to fly itself home (our host has a helipad on his roof), yet just as surprised to wake up the next morning - not having gotten even tipsy - with a remarkably bad hangover. Sulphurs, we've been told.

The pillowy and undressed Malatov dumplings were served warm with a traditional potato salad – grain mustard and apple cider vinegar - cold. With the Malatovs we opened two Spatleses: the floral, tasty 1998 Münsterer Pittersberg, Kruger-Rumpf which reminded us a bit of autumn’s too leggy impatiens. Its low acids were a touch flabbier and not as articulate as we'd have preferred. Superior, we agreed, was the elegant 1997 Brauneburger Juffe, Max. Ferd. Richter which age had left with a poised citrus bounce, and one bereft of youthful sweetness.

With a homemade and thankfully none-too-sweet pumpkin pie, we popped the 1999 Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle - Auslese -- Dönnhoff. This we found a bit monotonous and syrupy, rather sans character or interest. But then we aren't much of Sauternists either.